Translating Korean Novels

Lucia Chapter 39 [part 2]

Lucia lifted her head to look at him at the sound of laughter. At times, he would laugh oddly when she said something and Lucia couldn’t tell what part of it he was laughing at.

“It would be very easy to feed you. Even if I make money, seems like you don’t really use it.”

“I do use it. You know how much money it takes to throw a party?”

“I mean for personal spending.”

“I also use it for personal spending. I bought flowers to decorate the garden…”

“Dresses or jewelry. Things like that.”

“I’ve spent on that. Spent a lot of money to repair a dress but the Taran warehouse is overflowing with jewelry. I wouldn’t be able to wear all of them till I die.”

This was because noble women tended to accumulate lots of precious ornaments. For a family of considerable wealth, there would be precious ornaments passed from generation to generation however, these ornaments would be property of the family.

In the care of a divorce, the precious ornaments obtained by the noble women were completely recognized as their property apart from the alimony.

The conversation somewhat failed to get his point across so Hugo spoke a bit more directly.

“Do you not want to spend my money?”

Lucia thought about the meaning of his words for a moment then laughed.

“It’s not like that. Did you think so?”

Surprisingly, he was quite sensitive. Discovering this unexpected side to him was somehow so cute, Lucia couldn’t stop laughing. To think that the huge man who gives off enormous pressure was cute…perhaps this was a side effect of being with Damian.

Since she’d looked at small Hugo for a long while, looking at big Hugo now, the previous threat level was somehow cut in half. It didn’t occur to her that maybe this was a result of Hugo’s effort.

If Lucia recalled their first encounter at the victory ball, she’d be able to tell just how different he is from back then. Even if out in the world, he was the King of beasts, in front of her, he killed his momentum, becoming more docile.

“Why’re you laughing?” (Hugo)

She couldn’t see the image of the Taran Duke, the black lion of the war that overwhelmed people simply by being there, in the man grumbling in front of her.

And so, the little rabbit, Lucia sat at the feet of the great Lion, laughing and thinking he was cute.

“I was just so surprised. I didn’t expect you to have think like that. Truthfully, I’m not fond of shopping unnecessarily.”

“Hah…right. Our ladyship is used to being thrifty and frugal.”

“It’s a good thing though.”

“Did I say otherwise?”

He’d never heard of a wife being criticized for being frugal. Asking her to use and spend his money somewhat seemed like a joke now.

His wife was fragile, she felt like she’d be crushed if he held her a bit more tightly but she had a rock-solid will, confidence and independence in her thoughts. Even though her appearance was full of contradictions, she didn’t contradict herself.

Hugo needed something to hold onto her. There was already a strong bond of marriage tying them together but it was lacking.

He wanted to find something based on her personal desires so she could never escape from him. It was not money and neither was it power.

As for her social activities, they were limited to the necessary minimum amount that she had to do. There weren’t many people she had frequent exchanges with and she hadn’t built an active rapport with influencers of the northern social circles.

She didn’t show much interest in his work neither did she snoop around in his office.

Money and Power.

‘If one subtracts the two, what else is there for humans to have?’

The people of the bottom class do not have money and power yet they have families and bear children with love.

What do they have?

‘Is it the child?’

At the sudden thought, his frame of mind grew somber. He definitely did not want a child born from his blood to exist. Even if there was no reason, he couldn’t give her a child anyways.

When he thought about it carefully, he found himself doing well. He’d been proven by many woman, and he was confident.

If he could make her toss and turn at night because she was lonely without him then that was truly killing two birds with one stone. It was a little instinctive but in the first place, the more instinctive the desire is, the greedier it is.

The problem was he wasn’t too sure if she liked it too so he decided to garner some confidence.

“Do you like doing it with me?”

“…Huh?”

“Are you satisfied on the bed?”

Lucia’s face, all the way to her neck, gradually turned red. She stared at his brazen face for a moment then turned around, her back facing him.

“I need to sleep a bit more. You should hurry and get back to work.”

Hugo was considerably shocked by her turning away. Was it terrible to the extent that she didn’t even want to answer?

He hastily pulled at her.

“Vivian, what’s the problem? The length? Number of times? Not enough caressing? Or is it the position…”

Lucia quickly sat up and screamed at him.

“That’s enough so please just stop! How can you? You…you…those words…”

Her face was as red as an apple as she rambled causing him to chuckle. The sight of her embarrassed and shaken up made him want to tease her.

“What’s wrong all of a sudden? I’ve said much more racy stuff than that.”

“Th…That…the situation was different.”

“In the bedroom. On the bed. What’s so different?”
“Even if we’re in the same place, time has passed so the situation is different. Now, it’s morning…”

Lucia jerked as he climbed over her knees and onto the bed. Even though there was no place to escape to, she was thinking of escaping. However he was faster.

His arms intercepted her body on the bed, closing up any gaps for escaping.

“It’s not like we’ve never done it in the morning before.”

“You also overslept then…”

“Your criteria’s pretty unique. It’s okay to do it from night to morning but not in the morning?”

He lowered his head and covered her lips with his own. The kiss which started off gently quickly flared up as their tongues tangled with each other.

His tongue rummaged inside her mouth, caressing her gums, stroking the inside of her palate and rolling her tongue like a ball.

Their lips separate for a moment then were glued together again.

When his hands flew to her chest, grabbing her breasts and rubbing with his fingers, Lucia suddenly came to her senses.

“Look here, Beast-ssi.” (1) (Lucia)

His red eyes widened in surprise.

“If you go any further than this, you’ll have to explain to the guests tomorrow why they have to leave as soon as they arrive.”

“Ha-ha. You really…”

He burst out laughing and took Lucia into his arms. Lucia felt her body tingle at the sound of his laughter.

‘Ah…’

Lucia sighed inwardly

‘I’m happy now.’

She was so happy that her heart felt numb and tingling. She felt the edges of her eyes sting and buried her head in his chest.

Translator’s Corner

1) For here, I don’t usually leave Korean terms in my translations but Mr. Beast or Sir. Beast felt so awkward. Think of it like Beast-kun… Well, not exactly but something like that. It’s a honorific.

I think it’s more like he’s completely taken that out of the picture because he’s stuck at ‘the woman who swore she’ll never love me’ part of the contract…and he’s vying for other alternatives to superglue her to him…

I kinda emphatize with that part coz things on paper like that trap me alot hahaaha